A Comeback By Nationalism

July 4, 1985

There's no question that at the end of World War II internationalism replaced nationalism as the guiding philosophy of many Americans. After all, the National Socialists in Germany and the fascists in Italy and Japan had given nationalism a bad name. But now, 40 years later, on the Fourth of July, it's time to face reality: Real nationalism cannot be replaced with internationalism or with globalism or interdependence.

We're not talking about the nationalism of a nasty sort that characterized the fascists but nationalism of an enlightened variety. And there is no better definition of that kind of nationalism than Thomas Jefferson's words that he wrote to a friend in 1799: ''The first object of my heart is my own country. In that is embarked my family, my fortune, and my own existence. I have not one farthing of interest, nor one fibre of attachment out of it, nor a single motive of preference of any one nation to another, but in proportion as they are more or less friendly to us.''

What he was saying was that loving one's nation is not to feel negatively toward another. To seek its advancement and safety is not to practice isolation. Trade, travel, communications and cooperation between sovereign nations is older in practice than internationalism is in theory. No one knew better than Mr. Jefferson that without France's assistance, the United States might never have been.

Patriotism is coming back in America and that is nothing more than pride and affection for one's own nation. Pride and affection are justified because the United States remains a nation that is unmatched in its commitment to freedom and its generosity in spending blood and treasure on behalf of the freedom of others.

In the words of another patriot, John Adams, let us celebrate this day ''as a day of deliverance . . . solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.''